Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol III (1901).djvu/226

nation of the presidency of the board of trade. The prime minister (Lord Rosebery) requested him to withdraw it, but later on he insisted upon it, and his resignation took effect on 12 May 1894. He gave his reasons for it in the House of Commons on the 24th. As for the bearing of these proceedings upon his character, the opinion of a stout political opponent intimately acquainted with the facts can here be given. In a letter, not at the time intended for publication, Lord James of Hereford (then Sir Henry James) wrote: 'It seems strange to me that, after having had an intimate acquaintance with Mundella for nearly thirty years, I should now be writing in regard to him a letter which may be regarded as of an exculpatory character. I say it is strange, because during all our intimacy I have had full reason to know by what a high standard of rectitude his conduct has been controlled. My object, however, in writing to you is to say that I have had an opportunity of obtaining some insight into the affairs of the New Zealand Loan Company and Mr. Mundella's connection therewith. I can discover nothing in all these proceedings, so far as I know them, which ought to disentitle Mr. Mundella to the confidence of any man.'

Nevertheless a suffering, poignant in proportion to his keen sense of honour, shook the health of his robust frame. In the succeeding general election of 1895, which proved so disastrous to his party, his constituents returned him unopposed, and his former colleagues invited him to take his place again upon the front opposition bench. His energy in and out of parliament returned; in particular he took a prominent part in debate on the education bills of 1896 and 1897. But on the night of 18 June 1897 he was struck with paralysis, and he died on 21 July at his house, 16 Elvaston Place, Queen's Gate. A memorial service was held at St. Margaret's on the 26th, and he was buried at Nottingham on the 27th.

His life was one of unresting public activity, characterised throughout by a certain eager and warm-hearted combativeness, but characterised too by a modest estimate of the range of his own capacities, and by unselfish desire that good work should be done, whether he or another got the praise. Few strenuous partisans have counted in their circle of friends so many of their foremost opponents. To those friends he left the recollection of a man full of fire and fight; shrewd, but none the less simple-minded and tender of heart. In parliament he seldom spoke except to put the house in possession of his own experience. Voice, manner, presence, temperament, and intense but genial conviction lent him oratorical resources which he used with powerful effect in popular meetings. His relation to Gladstone was that of enduring trust and personal loyalty. His history is in part merged in that of the political cause of which he was a champion; but he is to be remembered as one of the two or three who established the British state system of popular education, and as a great and successful labourer for industrial peace.

The bust of Mundella, by Boehm, passed to his daughter, Mrs. Roby Thorpe, Stowe House, Lichfield; an oil painting by Cope is in the mayor's parlour, Sheffield; and a replica in the possession of his daughter, Miss Mundella, 18 Elvaston Place, W.—both presented by 'constituents independent of party.'

MUNK, WILLIAM (1816–1898), physician, eldest son of William Munk, an ironmonger, and his wife Jane Kenward, was born on 24 Sept. 1816 at Battle, Sussex, and after education at University College, London, graduated M.D. at Leyden in 1837. He began practice in London in September 1837, and in 1844 he became a licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians of London, and in 1854 a fellow. In 1857 he was elected the Harveian librarian of the college, and held office till his death. In that year he published 'Memoirs of the Life and Writings of J. A. Paris, M.D.'[see Paris, John Ayrton], and in 1861 'The Roll of the Royal College of Physicians of London,' in two volumes. A second edition of this work appeared in 1878 in three volumes, and it is the best general work of reference on the physicians of England. It is exact in its references to the manuscript records of the College of Physicians, and contains much information from other sources, the origin of which is not always indicated, but which is generally valuable. Its bibliography is imperfect and does not show any profound acquaintance with the contents of English medical books, yet almost every subsequent writer on subjects relating to the history of physicians owes something to Dr. Munk. In 1884 he edited 'The Gold-headed Cane' of Dr. William MacMichael [q.v.], and in 1887 published 'Euthanasia, or Medical Treatment in aid of an Easy Natural Death,' and in 1895 'The Life of Sir Henry Halford, Bart., M.D.' The College of Physicians voted him one hundred guineas in consideration of this work. He also published some 'Notæ Harveianæ'